At last, the Genius Hour Project has finally reached its end. The twelve weeks have gone by faster than I expected. I have begun working on my presentation. I ran into a problem while working on it, my slides got deleted and I couldn’t get them back. This was frustrating because I had already done a lot of work on it. However, after about an hour of trying, I finally fixed it and got my slides back. I had to buy Canva Pro so that I could access the document history and go back to it before the slides got removed.
I’m nearly done with my presentation. I just have to add a few things and make the video part of it. This will be due when I get back from winter break. I think my presentation is going to be good. Nonetheless, it’s still a little bit stressful because it’s not something I have done before. I’ve been catching up on some much-needed practice, and I'm glad I have winter break to continue finishing up the project. For the video part of the project, I am going to record myself playing Upside Down by Jack Johnson, and if I have enough time in my presentation I might add a few other things to the video, like the Arabian music I learned and maybe the intro to Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson. Since I replaced my guitar strings last week, I have noticed that they have been getting out of tune more easily, which makes sense if you think about it. This week I have been focusing on practicing by playing through my songs with minimal mistakes. I have also been strumming without a pick because for some reason I just like not using a pick. I would rather use my fingers. However, it is more difficult for me to do it without a pick.
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While this week has been hectic, I have managed to get in a decent amount of practice. I’ve basically memorized Upside Down by now and I can play it with ease. However, I can’t play the outro up to speed yet, and there are a few places where I don’t switch between notes quite fast enough. Other than that, I should be good. I have got the Arabic-style song that I have been playing down pretty well. I can play through it most of the time with minimal mistakes. Today I finally replaced the strings on my guitar. Basically, the copper layer around my steel strings started breaking and unwinding. This created a buzzing sound and also made it harder to slide my finger down the strings. Here are some pictures I took when I was replacing the strings: After replacing the strings, I noticed that they sounded more crisp and clear. I also noticed that the strings were a bit rougher on my fingers. This is probably just due to my previous strings being worn down.
This week I started on my presentation. I found a slide show template that I like and I organized it and split it up into different sections that I plan to do in my presentation. I will include a video in my presentation of me playing some things to show what I have learned. Besides Monday I did not have the chance to practice this week because I was out of state the rest of the week. As far as my progress for this project is concerned I am slightly overwhelmed. I should begin my presentation soon and I’m still not yet where I want to be with my ability to play the songs I am learning. But, to be fair, I have had a challenging month and I think I have still got enough done this month to be productive despite the challenges. My goal and focus for this coming week is to play Upside Down up to speed without unnecessary pauses. I would also like to begin organizing my presentation.
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Logan TronsenI'm a 10th grader at Davie High. I'm learning guitar as part of a project called genius hour in my English II Honors class. Archives
December 2022
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Photo used under Creative Commons from chocolatedazzles